Trump Cements Israeli Impunity with New Jerusalem Embassy on Stolen Palestinian Land

In a move reeking of impunity, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Sa’ar signed an agreement on July 1 for the construction of a permanent American embassy in Jerusalem. “The lease agreement for the land is for 99 years, and the United States will pay Israel the sum of $1,” Huckabee announced at the time. Sa’ar, meanwhile, described the agreement as “another milestone in the unbreakable alliance between Israel and the United States.” The deal certainly marks another milestone: another crime in the long history of Israel’s unchecked and illegal appropriation of Palestinian land with overt support from Washington.

During U.S. President Donald Trump’s first administration, Washington unilaterally declared Jerusalem Israel’s capital in December 2017, laying the groundwork for the new embassy. At the time, Trump claimed that the decision did not reflect a stance on Israel’s borders. Yet Washington followed this decision by relocating its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in May 2018, coinciding with the anniversary of the 1947-49 Nakba, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forcibly displaced by Jewish militias upon the creation of the state of Israel.

The new U.S. embassy will be constructed on land known as the Allenby Complex, which Palestinians leased to the British Mandate authorities from the late 1930s until the end of the British Mandate in May 1948. By 1950, Israel confiscated the land under its Absentee Property Law, which was used to seize property from Palestinians who fled during the Nakba and has since been widely utilized across the Occupied Palestinian Territory today.

Constructing a permanent U.S. embassy in Jerusalem violates multiple U.N. resolutions regarding the final status of the city.

Constructing a permanent U.S. embassy in Jerusalem violates multiple U.N. resolutions regarding the final status of the city. United Nations General Assembly Resolution ES-10/19, which reaffirms previous resolutions from 1967 to 2016, states that any alterations to Jerusalem’s status cannot be recognized and “calls upon States to refrain from the establishment of diplomatic missions in the Holy City of Jerusalem, pursuant to Council resolution 478 (1980).”

The U.S. Congress has never honored these U.N. resolutions. Instead, it has passed repeated resolutions to transfer the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, with lobbying by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) since the early 1970s playing a major role. These efforts culminated in the Helms Amendment of 1988, which paved the way for the eventual embassy move. Sponsored by Senator Jesse Helms, the amendment allowed the establishment of two diplomatic facilities in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. With both options available, the president was given the authority to decide which city Washington would recognize as Israel’s capital.

Both governments moved quickly. In January 1989, the United States and Israel signed the lease agreement referenced by Huckabee, valued at $1 per year for 99 years, to construct a diplomatic facility at the Allenby Complex. By this time, however, Israel disagreed with the vagueness of the term “diplomatic facility” in the Helms Amendment, demanding clear admission that the land would be developed for the construction of an embassy. They halted the project due to the uncertain language. Then, in 1994, roughly one year after the Oslo Accords were signed to establish the Palestinian Authority and further codify the two-state solution framework, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin decided the disagreements were unimportant. The plan moved forward.

During an AIPAC meeting in May 1995, Senator Robert Dole announced that he would introduce a bill to relocate the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. The bill, titled the Jerusalem Embassy Act, passed in October 1995, recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s “undivided, united and reunited” capital. It also stipulated that the embassy in Jerusalem should open by May 31, 1999.

Palestinians, however, question the 1989 lease agreement, arguing the land constitutes illegally confiscated Palestinian refugee property. Research by Palestinian historian Nur Masalha uncovered British Mandate records that describe the land, subdivided into eight parts, as leased land to the British Mandate. Further research by Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi provides an overview of Palestinian land ownership before 1948, noting that 70.52% of the land allocated for the embassy was confiscated from Palestinian refugees after the Nakba.

Trump, however, quickly departed from the two-state paradigm in his first term, laying the groundwork for policies that undermined Palestinian rights, further weakened prospects for a negotiated settlement and opened the door for the embassy move.

Excluding Trump, the White House has waived the embassy move every six months under Section 7 of the Jerusalem Embassy Act, which allows the president to waive the law’s requirements when considering U.S. national security interests. This section was clearly drafted with the understanding that any such embassy move would be politically sensitive, likely undermining Washington’s already biased mediator role in Israel-Palestine negotiations.

Trump, however, quickly departed from the two-state paradigm in his first term, laying the groundwork for policies that undermined Palestinian rights, further weakened prospects for a negotiated settlement and opened the door for the embassy move. Particularly egregious actions included discrediting the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) and challenging the internationally recognized definition of Palestinian refugee status. Unilateral concessions Trump made to Israel, notably the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the relocation of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv, set the scene for the second chapter currently unfolding during his second term. President Joe Biden’s refusal to reverse Trump’s policies only encouraged these developments.

In parallel, the so-called “Deal of the Century” that failed to settle the final status of Israel and Palestine, alongside the subsequent Abraham Accords that witnessed the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco become the first Muslim or Arab-majority states to normalize relations with Israel, shifted attention away from the two-state consensus. These and other decisions paved the way for the so-called “Board of Peace,” Trump’s mechanism for entrenching Israel’s genocide in and occupation of Gaza that even the U.N. Security Council approved after substantial pressure from Washington.

There has never been a better time to consolidate impunity than now, with a U.S. administration so willing to apply maximum pressure on any actor daring to push back. The winner is Israel and the losers are Palestinians.

Building a permanent U.S. embassy in Jerusalem impinges on the city’s final status issues and reneges on the diplomatic reassurances of previous U.S. administrations. While no one should expect the Trump administration to honor past deals or promises, the move represents a deeper shift toward radical Israeli exceptionalism on the part of American policymakers. Previous U.S. leaders avoided this level of anti-Palestinian pressure, even if they were typically pro-Israel and complicit themselves. The international community, meanwhile, does nothing, unwilling to seriously push back as an inherently colonial and imperial enterprise disenfranchises an entire people at warp speed.

The Trump administration has been disastrous for Palestinian self-determination, let alone basic human rights globally. Yet it is prior decisions that opened the door for this disaster, including and especially under the Biden administration. As a result, final status issues have been slowly rendered null, not in the context of stalled negotiations, but in the reality of the genocidal politics carried out by Israel and endorsed by and supported in Washington. The embassy decision is not the first, nor the last, disaster in this long saga to eliminate Palestinian self-determination and cement impunity, a lesson that leaders around the world would be wise to finally learn and act upon.

Trump Cements Israeli Impunity with New Jerusalem Embassy on Stolen Palestinian Land